Safe consumption site in Timmins ready to open Monday
With Health Canada's permission, street drugs can now be consumed inside Safe Health Site Timmins.
Beginning Monday, people struggling with addiction can go there to inject their pre-obtained substances under the supervision of trained staff.
“We do hope to see for the community at large that if they know someone who uses substances, there's a safe place for them," said Patrick Nowak, manager of the addictions program at Timmins and District Hospital.
"We also hope to see decreases in 911 calls, we hope to see less discarded needles and things like that in the community."
There are three consumption booths, each equipped with sterile injection supplies.
"We have the mirrors there so nurses at the other end of the nursing station can sort of watch to make sure there's nothing medically wrong," said Nowak.
People can also get information on site about other local health services.
Dr. Louis Marion-Bellemare said opening Safe Health Site Timmins is an important milestone, but more work needs to be done because it's only a temporary site.
“The Timmins Area Drug Strategy and many other community organizations and leaders are still working vigorously on a permanent site," Marion-Bellemare said.
"That site takes quite a bit of time and we have to get special exemptions from the government and we are still actively working on that and we’re getting closer every day to a permanent site.”
Fifteen new jobs have been created at Safe Health Site Timmins, including nurses, nurse practitioners, harm reduction workers and patient engagement and safety staff members.
Retired police chief John Gauthier will be one of them.
“I’m not done yet. I need to keep serving the community in some form and I'm glad to do it this way," said Gauthier.
In the past two years, health officials said Timmins has had alarmingly high death rates due to suspected drug overdoes, ranking second in the province in 2020 and fourth last year.
The City of Timmins provided $1 million to establish the site.
CTVNews.ca Top Stories
Doctors say capital gains tax changes will jeopardize their retirement. Is that true?
The Canadian Medical Association asserts the Liberals' proposed changes to capital gains taxation will put doctors' retirement savings in jeopardy, but some financial experts insist incorporated professionals are not as doomed as they say they are.
Something in the water? Canadian family latest to spot elusive 'Loch Ness Monster'
For centuries, people have wondered what, if anything, might be lurking beneath the surface of Loch Ness in Scotland. When Canadian couple Parry Malm and Shannon Wiseman visited the Scottish highlands earlier this month with their two children, they didn’t expect to become part of the mystery.
Fair in Ontario, flurries in Labrador: Weather systems make for an erratic spring
It's no secret that spring can be a tumultuous time for Canadian weather, and as an unseasonably mild El Nino winter gives way to summer, there's bound to be a few swings in temperature that seem out of the ordinary. From Ontario to the Atlantic, though, this week is about to feel a little erratic.
What a urologist wants you to know about male infertility
When opposite sex couples are trying and failing to get pregnant, the attention often focuses on the woman. That’s not always the case.
He replaced Mickey Mantle. Now baseball's oldest living major leaguer is turning 100
The oldest living former major leaguer, Art Schallock turns 100 on Thursday and is being celebrated in the Bay Area and beyond as the milestone approaches.
'It was instant karma': Viral video captures failed theft attempt in Nanaimo, B.C.
Mounties in Nanaimo, B.C., say two late-night revellers are lucky their allegedly drunken antics weren't reported to police after security cameras captured the men trying to steal a heavy sign from a downtown business.
Bank of Canada officials split on when to start cutting interest rates
Members of the Bank of Canada's governing council were split on how long the central bank should wait before it starts cutting interest rates when they met earlier this month.
Quebec nurse had to clean up after husband's death in Montreal hospital
On a night she should have been mourning, a nurse from Quebec's Laurentians region says she was forced to clean up her husband after he died at a hospital in Montreal.
Northern Ont. lawyer who abandoned clients in child protection cases disbarred
A North Bay, Ont., lawyer who abandoned 15 clients – many of them child protection cases – has lost his licence to practise law.